I finished The Forrests by Emily Perkins which I was really disappointed by unfortunately. It was very long and felt like hard work to get through and I would have been tempted to give up on it if it wasn't on the Women's Prize longlist, which had so far given me some of the best books I've read this year. The two main problems were the overwheming misery of the book and the female characters reliance on men, normally useless ones. I don't mind a bit of melancholy, in fact I really love it, but this was just miserable and lacking in any hope or joy.

I also read Jimmy Coates: Sabotage, the fourth book in the Jimmy Coates series by Joe Craig (I reviewed the first three here). This was my favourite in the series so far and I read it in a day needing to know how all the twists and mysteries were going to be sorted - of course being the middle of a series means a lot of them weren't and I've started the fifth book, Survival which is set to continue the pattern of each book being better than the last.

I also started May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes this week, the next book on the Women's Prize shortlist. I have owned this book ever since it came out but it's shortlisting has kicked it up to the top of the pile. I find Homes' writing very engaging and readable as well as thought provoking. It's blackly humorous and manages to fuse clever writing with a proper story and characters we care about.

I was very pleased to be approved for two books on NetGalley: Alex Woods Versus the Universe by Gavin Extence (which I put on my wishlist last week) and Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence by David Samuel Levinson.

We also had our #tweetckg discussion about In Darkness by Nick Lake and you can see the Storify of the discussion here. I also added too many books to mention to my wishlist but including Frances & Berard by Carlene Baeur.